Let me preface this post with a very clear pronouncement: I am not in favor of restricting abortions, especially if the restrictions are based on a religious idea of morality.
Pop quiz: Am I about to advocate for government control of reproductive issues? If you answered anything other than “NO”, please re-read the introduction. If you answered “NO”, continue reading.
President Obama is about to introduce a wide ranging plan to expand government restrictions on guns. From what I see today, it looks to be everything from a ban on entire classes of weapons (“assault weapons”) to restrictions on capacity of ammunition magazines to reporting and registration requirements.
I also hear that he’s going to announce the new initiative surrounded by kids who wrote to him about their fear of guns.
If you think that this is a good idea, I hope that you are ready to hand over your autonomy on all sorts of other individual rights.
I know what you’re thinking…”this is to protect children and to stop violence”…”why do you need [type of weapon]”….etc.
Just remember this…there are a lot of people out there, mostly religious, who think the exact same thing about abortion. They think that abortion is murder, that you don’t have a right to kill a baby that God created, that abortion should be banned entirely…to them, whether the baby dies before it is born or after is irrelevant and whether it’s you making the decision to kill or some random person is also irrelevant. It’s murder, pure and simple.
So you say “but we need to stop the violence and protect our children”. Just like the religious lunatics say when they demand a ban on abortions.
You say “we don’t want a total ban, just reasonable regulation”. Just like the religious lunatics say.
The bottom line is that if you are on board with Obama’s to-be-announced plan, you’re in favor of stripping a fundamental right away from 99.9% of law abiding people just so you can vainly attempt to stop the .1% from engaging in horrific acts.
If that’s your solution to a problem, to ban things that are abused on rare occasion, then when the religious lunatics are in power you’re not going to be able to stop them from using the same precedent Obama is about to set to take away rights that you think are fundamental, like abortion or contraception.
They’re going to say “maybe some abortions are for health reasons, but there are too many innocent babies being killed and we need reasonable regulation”. That reasonable regulation, just like reasonable regulation of firearms, will mean that the right to abortion is essentially at the discretion of governmental whim. No abortions after the first week…no abortions if you’ve already had an abortion in the past 30 years…everyone who has an abortion has to be registered in a government database that is in the public domain… How would you like that?
Even if you hate guns you have to understand that what is about to be proposed by Obama is an unprecedented and dangerous usurpation of individual rights. Every time you hear “reasonable, common sense regulation” of guns tomorrow, think about President Santorum saying that about abortion as he introduces his 2017 Protection of Children Act.
